Wishful Thinking (a journey that will change lives forever) (10 page)

“Thanks,” she said just recovering in time to hand him her visa card – her already-so-overloaded-it-might-spontaneously-
combust
visa card – and prayed like hell the transaction would go through.

Even Sam seemed surprised.  “You lot are
definitely
all out to celebrate tonight,” he said, eyes widening. “I was going to offer to buy you a drink, but ah … I think I left my gold-card at home!”

Shit, Louise thought, as the barman offered to help her take the drinks back to the girls.  Now, he thinks I’m one of those flashy, loaded ‘It’ girls – or whatever the Irish version was anyway. ‘
Cailini Anseo,’
maybe? 

Little did he know.

“Well, it’s not usually like this,” she said grimacing, as the barman went off with the first tray, “but somehow I got stuck for this round and – ”

“Some round.  I thought my mates were whores for the drink, but at least beer doesn’t cost the same as Africa’s national debt!”

OK, OK, don’t remind me, she wanted to say.  But at least she wasn’t the only one who thought this was going way overboard.  Then, catching sight of Gemma approaching, she quickly altered her features into something resembling a carefree smile. 

“What’s taking so long, Louise?” Gemma demanded. “We’re all parched!”

Sam laughed. “She’s trying to come up with something to pawn off so she can pay for your cocktails!” he teased.

“What?” The bride-to-be eyed Louise, her expression like thunder. “Louise, if you didn’t want to buy me a drink, all you had to do was say so,” she said huffily. 

Louise wanted to murder Sam.  Now it looked as though she was a right stingy so-and-so!

“Don’t mind him,” she said, mustering another carefree smile. “Of course I’ve no problem buying you drinks.  Sure, isn’t it your big night, after all?”

“Well, look, hurry up with those, will you?  The girls are getting impatient. Sasha, Stephanie and Tania can only stay for this one – they’re on the night-shift tonight – and Fiona wants to move somewhere else soon.”

Typical! Louise groaned inwardly as she watched Gemma sashay back out to the others, tiny flakes of glitter falling off as she moved.  She shook her head. Crafty old Fiona would avoid not only an expensive round in the Ice Bar, but would also get away with a much smaller one too! At times like this, Louise really wished she could be more assertive.  Fiona was always saying she was way too soft. But for some reason, Gemma was one of those people that you just couldn’t say no to – especially not on her hen night anyway.  Although, Fiona had no problems saying no . . .

“Looks like you lot are in for a hectic night then,” Sam stated, and Louise wasn’t sure but she thought she sensed a slight disappointment in his tone.  He wasn’t really that … oh no, perhaps she’d read it all wrong.  Perhaps he was interested in one of the other girls, maybe Tania or even Gemma, and he was just getting friendly with her so as to work his way into their company.  That had to be it.  God, she was such an eejit really, thinking that someone like him could be –

“It’s a pity, really,” he went on. “That you’re on a hen night, I mean – otherwise …”

“Otherwise?”

“Well,” he looked nervous all of a sudden, “you’re on a girls-only night tonight – and a very important
pre
-hen night.” His eyes twinkled and just then, Louise noticed he had a lovely smattering of freckles across his cheeks. “So, I can hardly ask you to leave them and come for a drink with me, can I?  Much as I’ve been dying to since you walked in the door,” he added meaningfully.

Louise looked at him blankly, wondering what the punch line was going to be.

But Sam just looked right back, obviously waiting for her to say something.

“I … I …” God, you are such an idiot, she admonished herself.  This guy is lovely and he’s just asked you out in a roundabout sort of way, so say something! Anything!

“Um … Bellinis are lovely, aren’t they?” was all she could think of.

Sam looked disappointed. “I don’t know – I’ve never tried one to be honest.”

Louise couldn’t think of anything else to say – she was too busy kicking herself for acting like a numbskull.

“So,” Sam tried again, “seeing as you’re otherwise engaged tonight, would you consider going out for a drink with me some other night?” He blushed slightly. “Um, we could have Bellinis if you want, I don’t mind, but I should warn you, I’m only a lowly paid office dogsbody.”

Louise couldn’t believe her ears.  Of
course
she’d go out with him!

“I’d love to,” she said, before adding, “For a normal drink though – not one of these.”

“I’m still a bit worried about what women call ‘normal’ drinks these days,” he said laughing. 

Out of the corner of her eye, Louise saw Gemma, Fiona and the others beckoning frantically at her.  They must be leaving soon, she thought idly, waving back at them.  Pity.

“I think your friends have already polished off their drinks,” Sam said.  He fished in his pockets and brought out his mobile phone. “Can I get your number?  I’ll give you a call next week some time maybe – seeing as you’re abroad this weekend. Would that be OK?”

“What?” For a moment, Louise didn’t know what he was on about.  Then she remembered – Gemma’s hen weekend! God, now he really must think she was one of those mad socialites, poor little rich girl and all that.  She’d better set him straight soon, otherwise he’d expect her to pay for their night out!

But more importantly, there
would
be a night out.  Brilliant.  He seemed really, really nice and it was such a pity that she was going away this weekend otherwise –

“So can I have your number, then?” Sam’s voice brought her out of her reverie. 

“Oh – oh, sorry.” Louise recited her number and watched him input it into his phone.  She wondered if he really was going to call her, or if it was just another one of those waste-of-time exchanges.  But at the same time,
he’d
approached
her
at the bar so –

“Louise, come on – drink up!” Gemma approached and, after giving Sam one of her most seductive smiles, grabbed Louise by the arm, almost knocking her drink over in the process.  Just then Louise realised that while the others had finished their cocktails, she’d barely touched hers.  The thoughts of throwing it back in front of Sam now would make her look like a right lush so …

“I think I might just leave it,” she said, putting the nearly full glass back on the bar. Then thinking of something, she smiled at Sam. “Or maybe you’d like to finish it? Seeing as you said you’ve never tried one and all.”

Sam looked delighted.  “Well, if you don’t want it … I must say I didn’t expect to be downing swanky cocktails when I came out tonight but …” He trailed off and gave Louise an appreciative look. “But then again, I didn’t expect to meet such an attractive lady either.”

Gemma rolled her eyes, either unimpressed by your man’s smooth chat-up lines, or distinctly unhappy about being ignored. 

“Sorry I have to rush off like this,” Louise said apologetically.

“No problem – have a good night,” Sam said smiling. “I’ll call you next week?”

“Sure,” she replied casually but, as she turned to follow the others out to the lobby, her mouth broke into a huge happy grin. Spotting her friend’s delighted expression, Fiona conspiratorially teased her: “Having a good night?”

Louise smiled back.  “Having a
great
night,” she replied happily. 

The weekend was even better, and although Louise felt incredibly guilty about yet
again
having to increase her overdraft to pay for this little break, it was almost worth it. 

Marbella was fantastic.  Lots of warm sunshine, fabulous beaches, and their hotel was a lot more sumptuous than Louise was normally used to on holidays.  Upon arrival, and although they were only there for three days, Gemma immediately drew up a plan of action for getting a tan, with a military precision that would be the envy of the US Special Forces. 

“Right girls, we start at seven a.m., break for food at twelve, and then it’s back on the beds until five,” she announced. “So, I need a list of volunteers to get up early and nab the sun-beds. Obviously,
I
won’t be doing it so … ”

There was usually nothing voluntary where Gemma was concerned, and Louise hoped desperately that she wouldn’t be chosen as one of the misfortunates who would be getting up at sunrise and blearily traipsing downstairs with an armful of towels.   But luckily, this time the bride’s teenage sister Mel ended up drawing the short straw, and Louise escaped that particular chore.

Not that she minded helping out, but sunbathing was normally way down on her list of priorities.  With her typically Irish skin, Louise had long since given up hope of ever getting a golden glow, but now that she was thinner, she supposed it would be nice to be able to wear a bikini without having to worry about her figure. 

Worrying about her scars however, would be a different matter.  She had quite a few slash marks, as she liked to call them, on her abdomen and of course the skin grafts on
her legs tended to catch the eye. But blast it, she was on holidays, and judging by the amount of the unnaturally big-busted women on the beach here, Louise wasn’t the only one to have ‘gone under the knife’. 

The afternoon of their arrival, and under Gemma’s strict instructions, the girls managed to grab some empty sun-loungers, and settled down for a few hours’ relaxation around the pool.  Louise had been dreading exposing her body for the first time, but luckily the girls didn’t seem at all interested in or bothered about her war wounds – they were too busy worrying about how they themselves looked
au naturel
.  

Although someone like Fiona didn’t need to worry, Louise thought, glancing enviously at her friend’s sallow, unblemished back, her faint colour set off by a white string ensemble.  Fiona only had to look sideways at a holiday brochure in order to turn a deep golden brown.  Louise sighed and reached for her Factor One Million, glow-in-the-dark sunscreen which she’d applied only twenty minutes earlier, knowing that if she waited any longer she’d end up a fetching shade of cerise tonight. 

Just once, Louise thought dreamily, as she sat up on her sun-lounger, just once she’d love to return home from abroad triumphant and tanned – with a bronze glow that would cause everyone to remark enviously, “I see
someone’s
just back from the sun!” instead of the usual, puzzled, “You were away? Where? Galway, was it?”

But Louise knew from experience that she could get burnt waiting for the transfer bus at the airport –
Dublin
airport, so despite Fiona’s stringent sunbathing routine, getting a tan would strictly remain a dream.   No, she’d need a year in the sun to make a difference and, even then, she’d be lucky if she came out in freckles!

She looked around the hotel grounds and spied a group of thin, leggy, Britney Spears clones wandering self-assuredly around the pool, chattering at the top of their voices in a distinctive, confident twang. Americans, she decided.

Now how did
they
all get to be so gorgeous, she wondered, particularly when Americans were all supposed to be descended from places the likes of Louth and Limerick? Why didn’t they go all pink and freckly in the sun, like normal, decent Irish people did?  Oh, well, it was definitely the luck of the draw, she decided, slathering on her sunscreen, hoping they wouldn’t spot her and start making smart comments about her elephant skin.

“Can’t you stay still for one second?” Fiona piped up a little testily.  “You haven’t stopped jumping up and down since we got here!  What’s up with you? Oh let me guess, you’re still mooning over that guy you met the other night, aren’t you?”

Louise looked at her blankly.

“The cute one with the nice brown eyes?” Fiona clarified, grinning.

“Oh!” Louise reddened slightly, but chances were Fiona wouldn’t know the difference – her skin was nicely flushed as it was. She hadn’t been thinking about Sam just then, but in truth had thought of little else since meeting him that night.  He seemed lovely and hopefully he would ring her.  “I’d forgotten all about him,” she lied.

“ Mmm, I believe you.”

Louise wished Fiona would stop teasing her about Sam. There was a very good chance that he might not ring at all, so there was no point in getting too excited over it. 

Still, it was difficult not to be excited.  He was so cute and he did seem genuinely interested, didn’t he? 

She lay back down, and closed her eyes, deciding that she would definitely not allow herself to be sunburned on this holiday, especially now that Fiona had reminded her of Sam.  Scaly, peeling skin was definitely not a good look.  And sure, she could always break out the St Tropez when she got back, just in case Sam thought she’d lied about going to the sun this weekend.

That night, the girls – some of them miraculously already bronzed – got dressed up to the nines and went on the rampage once again.  As they flitted from cocktail bar to cocktail bar on the marina, ordering elaborate and pricey concoctions that Louise had never heard of, she once again couldn’t help thinking about how much all of this was going to cost.  Yes, it was great fun and as Gemma kept repeating tearfully, going out with the girls was ‘what life was all about’, but it also was, quite literally, haemorrhaging Louise’s finances.

She had a meeting with her solicitor next week though, so hopefully Mr Cahill would have something positive to report – namely a date for the court hearing – but in the meantime, she was still up to her eyes in debt. 

At her doctor’s suggestion, Louise had a few months earlier made enquiries about getting some form of compensation from the driver who’d knocked her down.  She’d been horrified by the suggestion initially – after all, the man’s insurance company had already paid out for it.

“They paid out a pittance, Louise – barely enough to cover your treatment and enough to cover their own backsides,” Dr Cunningham had said during one of her periodic consultation visits to Cork University hospital.  “You should have a chat with a personal injury solicitor in Dublin, and see where you stand.  But in my opinion, that driver got away scot-free – considering the damage he did.”

So, upon her return to Dublin, Louise consulted the Golden Pages and shortly afterwards ended up in the offices of James Cahill, a solicitor whose ad proclaimed that personal injury claims were his ‘speciality’.  Cahill had been amazingly upbeat about her chances and even better, had offered to take the case on a no-win, no-fee basis. The actual term was ‘no
foal,
no fee’, apparently, but the whole situation was confusing enough without trying to grasp the meaning of that expression.  The solicitor asked her a few questions about the accident and about her subsequent injuries and then, quick as you like, suggested filing a civil suit against the errant driver.  “Seeing as the cut-off date for making a claim is rapidly approaching,” he’d explained.  Additionally, it seemed that Louise was actually
lucky
that her accident occurred when it did, as only just recently, the government had introduced a system whereby all new personal injury claims had to go through some specially appointed board, whereupon, Cahill informed her acerbically, “you wouldn’t get tuppence”.

So with any luck her solicitor would soon get a date for a hearing and there might be some light at the end of Louise’s current debt-strewn tunnel.

Still, this wasn’t the time to be thinking about it, she thought then, jumping up and joining the girls in an impromptu can-can, otherwise what was the point of being alive at all?  Hadn’t she spent long enough alone in her bed-sit with no friends and nothing to do, she thought, kicking her legs as high as they would go.  And wasn’t she lucky to have a life like this and great friends to share it with? 

“Louise, you’re bloody useless!” Gemma, on her right-hand side, informed her.  “Your timing is way off!”

“Oops, sorry!” In fairness, her rhythm had never been the best, but of course since her hip injury –

“Oh, forget it, there’s no point!” Gemma petulantly dropped her arm from around Louise’s waist, and bowed out of the line-up, leaving Louise still kicking madly trying to keep up with the rest of them.

Back at the table, Vanessa, Gemma’s best friend, gave Louise a withering look. “What is
wrong
with you?” she asked.

“Wrong? What do you mean?”

“You’ve been sitting there all night with a face that would trip a jackass! It’s Gemma’s special weekend! What’s the problem?”

“There’s nothing wrong – honestly …” Louise trailed off, puzzled.  She hadn’t been making it that obvious, had she? Oh no, she had never intended to let her money problems ruin poor Gemma’s hen weekend.  She really should cop onto herself – and to hell with the blasted money! “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset anyone – ”

Was she really acting a bit strange? she wondered, deciding she’d better ask Fiona if she’d thought that.  Although, at that moment her friend was being chatted up by some good-looking guy at the bar, so Louise didn’t like to interrupt her. She’d ask her later. “Just because you’re the only one who didn’t get a tan this weekend doesn’t mean you should take it out on the rest of us!” Gemma accused tetchily.

“What? I didn’t – ”

“Well, you haven’t stopped complaining about it since we got here, have you? ‘Lying out in the sun is a waste of time, I’ll never get anything here’,” she mimicked. “In fact, you haven’t stopped complaining about everything since we got here.  And don’t think I didn’t see your face earlier when everyone chipped in to buy me dinner.”

Well, yes, Louise
had
been shocked certainly – as had Fiona. Of course she had no problem chipping in for Gemma’s meal – again.  But she had been a bit taken aback because Gemma had ordered and happily polished off a big platter of fresh lobster.  At forty euro a pound …

But still, she really hadn’t said or done anything that would make them think – 

“Look, I’m really sorry if I’m a little bit off form, Gemma,” she said gently to the other girl. “But to be honest, I do have a few things on my mind and –”

“But it’s
always
the same with you, Louise – you’re always off in dreamland somewhere!  And if you didn’t want to come with us, you should have just said so.” The bride-to-be paused for dramatic effect and, soon after, tears magically appeared in her eyes. “If you weren’t interested in celebrating the most important occasion of my life with me…”

Your
hen
night? Louise thought, startled. What about your wedding? “Of course I want to celebrate with you, Gemma,” she said, hoping to mollify her. “And I do know how important this is to you. I’m sorry if I upset you, I really didn’t mean to. Tell you what,” she stood up, “let me make it up to you. Would you like another drink or …?”

Gemma smiled gratefully, the tears disappearing almost as quickly as they’d arrived.  “One of those passion-fruit cocktails would be nice. What do you think, girls?”

Louise groaned inwardly. Great, looked like she was stuck for another round!  Then, just in time, she stopped herself.  It really wasn’t fair to poor Gemma, and she really had no idea they considered
her
the life and soul of these things.  She didn’t even think she and Gemma were that close, but if the girl was that upset over her not joining in the fun …

“Fifteen passion cocktails it is, then,” Louise announced magnanimously, and Gemma beamed.  

Louise smiled back.  She obviously had a lot more friends than she’d thought.